Journalist shot dead on assignment in Mexico

Mexico
City, November 15, 2012--A freelance journalist and his companion were shot to
death Wednesday in the central Mexican state of Puebla shortly after the
reporter had gathered information on a large-scale gasoline theft and then witnessed
a stand-off between soldiers and gunmen, according to news
reports and CPJ interviews.

"In
many areas of Mexico, reporters put their lives at risk every time they go out
on assignment. These brazen murders are yet another example of the violent and
lawless conditions in which journalists work," Carlos Lauría, CPJ's senior
program coordinator for the Americas, said from New York. "Mexican authorities
must fully investigate these murders and bring those responsible to justice."

News
reports and local journalists identified the slain journalist as Adrián Silva
Moreno, who covered the local police beat for several small newspapers. Eloísa
Rodríguez Zamora, a local radio reporter, said Silva had been covering an army
investigation into the theft of gasoline from a government petroleum company in
the town of Tehuacán. Theft of gasoline from government pipelines is common in
the area, which is controlled by organized crime groups, according to local
journalists.

After
leaving the scene, Silva called Rodríguez to say he had seen an armed stand-off
between soldiers at a nearby roadblock and gunmen in an SUV and a Ford Lobo
pickup truck, she said. It was unclear if the confrontation was related to the gasoline
theft. She said that Silva told her that he had found something very important
at the scene of the theft but would explain later. Six minutes later, Rodríguez
said, she heard from police reports that
a man had been shot at that location.

Silva
was shot as he sat in the driver's seat, local journalists told CPJ. His
passenger, Misray López González, ran for a block but was also shot to death,
the journalists said.

The
motive for the killings was not immediately clear, although journalists
speculated that it could have been because of Silva's reporting on the gasoline
theft or because he could have identified the gunmen in the stand-off.

Local
reporters told CPJ that the presence of organized crime groups has made journalists
extremely cautious about what they cover, fearing retaliation if their coverage
angers the criminals. They said that as far as they knew, Silva had not been
threatened by organized crime groups.

Violence
related to drugs or organized crime has made Mexico one of the world's
most dangerous countries for the press, according to CPJ
research.